FILE - In this file image taken from video and released by SITE Intelligence Group on Monday, Nov. 8, 2010, Anwar al-Awlaki speaks in a video message posted on radical websites. Yemen's Defense Ministry said in a statement Friday Sept. 30, 2011 the U.S.-born al-Qaida cleric Anwar al-Awlaki has been killed. The ministry provided no details in the statement Friday on one of its websites. (AP Photo/SITE Intelligence Group) NO SALES— AP

+Read Caption

FILE - In this file image taken from video and released by SITE Intelligence Group on Monday, Nov. 8, 2010, Anwar al-Awlaki speaks in a video message posted on radical websites. Yemen's Defense Ministry said in a statement Friday Sept. 30, 2011 the U.S.-born al-Qaida cleric Anwar al-Awlaki has been killed. The ministry provided no details in the statement Friday on one of its websites. (AP Photo/SITE Intelligence Group) NO SALES
/ AP

SANAA, Yemen 
The Yemeni government has released an official statement saying the U.S.-born al-Qaida cleric Anwar al-Awlaki has been killed.

The government says al-Awlaki was targeted and killed 5 miles (8 kilometers) from the town of Khashef in the Province of al-Jawf. The town is located 87 miles (140 kilometers) east of the capital Sanaa.

The statement says the operation was launched on Friday around 9:55 a.m. It gave no other details.

If the death is confirmed, al-Awlaki would be the most prominent al-Qaida figure to be killed since Osama bin Laden's death in a U.S. raid in Pakistan in May.